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Neighboring Pennsylvania, New Jersey spotlight gay marriage efforts

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The New Jersey state Supreme Court on Friday refused to delay a lower-court order for the state to recognize same-sex marriages starting Monday. Here's a look at how gay marriage stands in all 50 states.
(Associated Press map)

A flurry of recent court decisions has gay couples in New Jersey, where same-sex marriage has long been debated, hurrying to make wedding plans for when they can legally marry starting Monday — even as a moderate Republican governor with apparent presidential aspirations awaits a decision on his appeal.

"I don't think it is going to happen next year. ... It's going to take leadership from the top," said state Rep. Mike Fleck, an openly gay Republican who represents a rural, conservative district in Huntingdon County, nestled in the Allegheny Mountains.

The different approaches — and levels of success — in the two neighboring states illustrate the many ways the effort to legalize same-sex marriage is playing out nationally in the months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of a federal law that restricted the rights of gay couples.

In recent weeks, at least eight county clerks in New Mexico have begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples while state courts wrestle with the implications of the high court ruling. Similarly, in Pennsylvania, a suburban Philadelphia court clerk issued 174 licenses to gay couples before a state judge ordered him to stop.

If both New Jersey and Pennsylvania legalize same-sex marriage, it would be law across a nine-state region that is home to more than 55 million people, or nearly a fifth of the nation's population. Just below the Northeast, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C., also allow gay marriage.

The debate in New Jersey, an overwhelmingly urban, Democratic state with a popular Republican governor, stretches back more than a decade. The state had already recognized civil unions, and on Friday, the state Supreme Court upheld an order for same-sex marriages to begin at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

The court said it will allow weddings to proceed while it considers an appeal by Gov. Chris Christie. However, justices gave a strong signal that the ruling likely will become permanent, saying they did not think the governor's arguments were likely to prevail.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Legislature's Democratic majority plan a postelection vote on overriding Christie's veto of a 2012 gay marriage bill, although no previous Christie veto has been overridden.

In Pennsylvania, where the first openly gay legislator was elected and Fleck came out of the closet last year, expectations are lower. Gov. Tom Corbett is a Republican, and the GOP controls both houses in the Legislature.

Fleck blamed demographics for the traditionally low profile of gay rights in the Legislature. While polls may show statewide support for gay marriage, he said, legislative constituents in Pennsylvania's vast rural and Appalachian areas — bookended by the more liberal hubs of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — do not share that viewpoint.

"It's certainly not the majority of my constituents," he said.

Fleck, who had been married to a woman, left that relationship in 2011 and came out in an interview with his local newspaper in December shortly after he was re-elected. At the time, he was the nation's only openly gay Republican legislator.

Rep. Brian Sims, a lawyer and former Bloomsburg University football team captain who came out to his teammates during his final semester, introduced a gay marriage bill just this week and predicted that victory is not far off.

"In about 15 months, we're going to have a new governor who's going to be signing this bill into law," the Philadelphia Democrat said, referring to the large field of Democrats who want to challenge Corbett's 2014 re-election bid.

Corbett publicly opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage but refuses to say in advance that he would veto such a bill, his spokesman said.

Lawmakers have made clear that gay marriage is not recognized in Pennsylvania. Changes approved by a lopsided, bipartisan majority in 1996 limited marriage to one man and one woman and declared that same-sex marriages legally performed elsewhere are void in Pennsylvania. The state also does not recognize civil unions.

James D. Esseks, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer and the group's lead attorney in the successful challenge of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, said the litigation and legislation will win new protections for gay couples while building a foundation for a favorable Supreme Court ruling on the constitutional issues.

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